Nearly a month before two century-old-churches developed cracks due to Metro Rail tunnelling work, it was the turn of the 114-year-old Madras Law College in N.S.C. Bose Road to face a similar situation. The crack has since been repaired.

The college located inside the Madras High Court complex has been classified as ‘Grade 1’ heritage structure by the Justice E. Padmanabhan Committee report which lists the heritage buildings in the city.

The construction of an underground Metro rail station is in progress near the college and this caused the crack in the building, said officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL).

“This could have happened during the construction of the diaphragm wall for the station. One of the main reasons for this occurrence could be the presence of loose soil that gave way and caused the crack,” said a CMRL official.

The crack was a minor one with less than 5mm width and it was repaired within 15 days, said officials of the college. “Experts inspected the site before the repair work was conducted,” he added.

In late July, the CSI Tamil Wesley Church and Arcot Lutheran Church in Prakasam Salai in Broadway had developed cracks The repair works of both these structures are underway. Experts of IIT-Madras who inspected these two churches said that the cracks in these two buildings may not severely affect them.

Officials of CMRL earlier told The Hindu that of the nearly 20-25 buildings of the 750 structures under which the tunnel boring machine (TBM) drilled through sported fresh cracks.